During the 90's and 2000's parents went out of their way to protect and insulate their children from anything that could be considered difficult, upsetting, or otherwise challenging. This approach to parenting has backfired, resulting in a significant number of young adults who are fragile and unable to cope with anything that is in opposition to their limited world views. This certainly isn't all young adults and likely only a small percentage, but the ones who fall into this category are extremely vocal. The catch-all term for these differing (and therefor upsetting) words, beliefs, viewpoints, political stances, etc is "offensive."

Among certain groups, status can be gained by being the most offended person in your social group. One is able to gain sympathy, respect, and in a twisted way dominance, over his or her peers by being playing up the ways in which the rest of society is out to get you. Minor misunderstandings, perceived slights, or even fictional situations in books, become opportunities for hysterics.

Perhaps most importantly, sharing these hysterics on social media is a way to further increase sympathy and demonize those who are in disagreement with you. This creates a chain reaction, causing others to pile on and punish the perceived offender. Instead of confronting the person privately and asking for an explanation or apology, sport has been made of collectively and publicly shaming those who have made mistakes or simply have a different viewpoint. Additional status can be unlocked by calling out things that you might not personally find offensive, but you think others might find offensive based on their own views. This has led to our current "call-out culture" and for those involved, finding new and creative ways to be offended feeds into this toxic culture and helps participants score status points among their peers.

Ha! Easy.

Being offended, or having others drop everything and crowd around to acknowledge your pain, to recognise that YOU EXIST, is a full-proof way of attracting attention in a world where identity is fiction, where community is fake, where tech breeds loneliness, depression, and mental illness, when the definition of success, that goal to strive for, which is beyond hyperbolic-having a gajillion subscribers and/or being the perfect human being-is unrealistic; unattainable; unsustainable; unfair. Hey, if I were this generation, I'd be finding ways to get hugs too. Wouldn't you?

We aren't "offended by everything". We HAVE become more inclusive and realized that some things that don't offend one group of people might be offensive to another group of people. And common courtesy dictates that we try to put other people at ease, help them feel included in the mainstream, and be as sensitive to their feelings as we would like others to be of ours.

That's the Golden Rule, and grownups try to abide by it. Unless they are self-absorbed douchebags.

I am seeing a lot of complaints about the expectation that people in our enlightened culture follow the Golden Rule. If you are one of them, I encourage you to consider trying out the Golden Rule. If you are unfamiliar with it, it goes:

DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

Have a nice day.

Is there a culture of being offended by everything? Or, is there a culture of complaining about everybody being offended by everything?

I tend to think it's more of the latter.

It's easy to think "oh, people are just offended by everything" when you do or say something that hurts other people, aren't aware of the harm caused, and aren't really open to or interested in the possibility that you might be harming someone.

Offended by everything?

Nobody's offended by everything.

It's just some by gits who think people are offended by everything. Because they're sexist racist assholes, everything they do is offensive, and no they're getting told that they're assholes.

Q: What contributed to or caused the current culture of being offended by everything?

I believe it has something to do with the fact that these kind of people:

I think one factor that could have set the whole thing in motion might be this idea being touted in many schools that there are no winners or losers in life ... not just that everybody gets a trophy, but everybody deserves a trophy, or a prize or whatever. I think it gives kids a false sense of entitlement ... that they are owed things ... that they deserve to be protected and sheltered from anything that might offend them.

Translated? ... We're raising a generation of wimps that will not do well adjusting to reality once they leave school.

Thank you for the ask-to-answer. Before I invest 30–60+ minutes of my life providing a sincere, detailed, well thought-out reply to your question, I'd like to learn something about your level of self-awareness. What made you curious about this, and what do you hope to do with whatever you learn from the answers provided? Thank you for respecting my time.

If you met Melania Trump and she came on to you, what would you do?Truthfully?I'd wax that ass in every room of the house; in every position, until I was cmming dust and the neighbors called the cops!Melania is a very

A banking chain in the Middle Atlantic states that will remain unnamed.My wife had just received a five figure settlement check drawn on the aforementioned bank, and we needed to cash it and transfer those funds to our personal banking account. Time was a factor, and having it cashed at one bank and deposited into the next was the